Lifetimes
by Jesuslovesmarina
Summary: Tommy Merlyn survived the earthquake, but what will the events leading up to his near-death mean for his future? In the past twenty-four hours he's been betrayed in the worst ways by his father, best friend, and girlfriend (sort-of...). Is there anything left for Tommy to live for? And if so, will the sacrifices he'll have to make be worth it? Post S1 AU
1. Tommy Lives

**A/N: Hi Everyone! Marina here. If any of you are following my other fics, be aware that 'Dad' is still my top priority right now. It's as far as I've ever gotten in a novel-length fic and I'm determined to finish it! That being said, I've been really into the Arrow fandom lately and wanted to show off the firstfruits of my musings. If you're into Arrow, enjoy! And PM me if you're curious about this fic and what it might contain in the future. Writing 'Dad' has showed me how key readers' suggestions are to keeping a story going, so fire away!**

 **Thanks y'all, and happy reading!**

 **Lifetimes**

" **You Lived to Save Others"**

 **Chapter 1**

"Tommy?" Oliver's voice broke, as his friend's head lolled to the side. His voice dropped to a hoarse whisper, trying not to choke on the dust and smoke rolling in as the ground continued to tremble under their feet and more of the building crumbled around them. "Open your eyes! Tommy!"

He bent down, cradling Tommy's head under one arm while sliding the other under his knees, grunting and panting as he got to his feet and turned, determined as he faced the wreckage before him, to get Tommy OUT of here. He was NOT leaving him—not again.

Screams and sirens were muffled as they barraged the building from all different directions, and more bodies lay scattered around.

They would probably need help, too. Some of them might even be alive, and Oliver was all but sure Tommy was not.

Seeing nobody move, however, and one limb entirely severed from a crushed body Oliver almost slipped and allowed himself to recognize as one of the senior lawyers he'd passed during visits with Laurel, he made the decision to forge on instead.

The path to the only visible exit was almost completely blocked with fallen boards and steel beams. Oliver tested each and every step before taking it, ignoring the strain in his arms as he inched little by little toward it.

Then a sudden aftershock twisted his leg out from under him. Oliver screamed, as blinding pain shot up through both his knee and ankle, sending him tumbling over Tommy's damaged body, facefirst into a wooden plank.

The smoke made it nearly impossible to get his breath. Oliver coughed, attempting to breathe through the pain and assess his situation, but he was seeing stars from the fall and he wasn't sure he could carry Tommy all the way to the exit anymore.

Then he heard Laurel screaming Tommy's name outside.

He'd liked to tell himself that everything he'd done was for her, but last night? That wasn't for Laurel, he finally admitted.

It was for himself.

Which was why he had to save Tommy, if there was any chance left. He owed it not just to his closest friend, but also to the girl he'd sworn to make things right with.

…

Laurel caught her breath when the dark-hooded figure appeared from the smoke, like a ghost from the ashes, barely visible but _there_.

"Daddy!" She hoarsely tugged at her father's sleeve as she ran toward them, ignoring the continual outpouring of smoke from the building. _"Tommy!"_

"Get a car," the disguised voice of the vigilante ordered, holding Tommy's motionless body in his arms. "We have to get him to a hospital. Now!"

Laurel's dad ran off to do just that, but she stayed, tears still streaming down her face as she stared at the hooded figure, dumbstruck. "Is—" she barely managed, trying not to sob, "is he still alive?"

Her eyes widened as he stepped forward, revealing Tommy very much unconscious in his arms, and with a huge splinter of metal impaled through his chest. There was blood— _so much blood—_

For a second, the rush of noise around her seemed to blur, the sidewalk sparkling in a strangely dizzying way.

"Laurel?" the vigilante's voice called, concerned. "Laurel, don't faint! He's counting on you!"

 _Right. Don't faint. You can do this,_ she mentally scolded herself, forcing in a huge breath and planting her feet a little wider to steady herself.

The squeal of tires brought her all the way around to the present. "Get in!" her dad was shouting at her, blaring the horn as other drivers attempted to cut him off. "Now, Laurel! Both of you! Get IN!"

She dashed for the passenger door, throwing it open as the vigilante staggered, limping so heavily she was amazed he didn't drop himself, let alone Tommy's dead weight, but made it all the way into the backseat still supporting her boyfriend's head.

 _Yes,_ Laurel thought to herself, even as she jumped in beside him and slammed the door just after her dad floored the gas pedal, he _was_ still her man. Maybe not the one who made her adrenaline rush and her head crazy, but the man she needed, which was somebody who would love her and adore her no matter what.

Eyes filling with tears, she moved to help ease some of Tommy's weight from the vigilante's arms into her own, but it was far from an easy task.

Being impaled as he was, they had to hold him up away from the seat, rather than lying him on top of it.

The vigilante grunted with pain and effort as he let her take Tommy's head and shoulders in her arms. "You got him?" he asked in his distorted voice.

"I think so…" Laurel wasn't even sure if she spoke aloud or not. All she could see was a shadow of Tommy's face in the darkness—not even the full outline, yet she could still feel that he was cold and clammy, clearly signs of heavy blood loss.

She was thrown from her musings when the car braked abruptly, sending her head crashing into the seat in front of her. She gasped and barely managed to keep her grip on Tommy and prevent him from falling.

"Everyone got your seatbelts on?" her dad barked from the front.

"We're not even IN our seats!" she shouted back, as they veered around a tight corner, headed straight for the hospital.

…

That car ride, for Oliver, took the whole idea of a nightmare and turned it on its head.

He was racking his brain for times on the island that had been quite this scary—quite this sickening, and somehow, he came up short.

" _Don't die on me,"_ he thought, unwilling to speak to Tommy out loud while in the car with Laurel and Detective Lance. _"You just can't. Tommy, you've got so much left to live for—you just can't!"_

Pretending for just a moment that the costumes didn't exist, he pressed one of Tommy's freezing hands against his face, holding it there for a moment. Then they hit another bump and all three of them went flying, barely staying upright.

…

Oliver made himself scarce as soon as they arrived at the hospital, sipping around back away from the crowds of people and cars and sirens all headed from the Glades while Laurel and the paramedics rushed inside with Tommy supported on a stretcher.

Hiding in the shadows of several square stone pillars that surrounded the terrace, he leaned against the wall with a groan to take the weight off his leg and lifted a hand to his ear. "Dig? You still there, buddy?"

He heard a weak chuckle on the other end. "Thank God you're alive," his friend replied with relief. "How's Laurel?"

"She's okay," Oliver forced his tone to remain as even as possible, determined to wait until later to explain about Tommy.

"Oliver?" Diggle's voice grew serious. "I'm so sorry, man. Merlyn must've survived because he got away. I don't have a clue how, or where he went. Either he attacked me and I can't remember what happened, or I must've passed out after you left."

"I won't be much use in tracking him down," Oliver stifled a groan, reluctantly pulling himself into a sitting position against the wall. Keeping his leg elevated was taking top priority now, even if getting to his feet if someone came along would be extra-difficult this way. "Unless Felicity magically happens to know exactly where he is. I've got a bum leg. Are you still on that rooftop or did you get help?"

"Actually, Felicity and I were just headed to the Glades to look for you," there was slight amusement in Diggle's tone.

"She's with you?" Oliver was relieved.

"Present," Felicity's voice called in as well. Her tone sounded flat. Oliver supposed that all of them were feeling defeated right now. They were functioning—not in the way most would after a catastrophic event like this, but in the way they best knew how—by keeping on going. "Do you need picked up, too?"

"There's not much we can do in the Glades right now without getting in the way, especially with Diggle bleeding everywhere," Oliver admitted. "Get to the hospital and we'll talk face-to-face."

"See you then."

As he ended the call, Oliver stiffened and struggled to his feet when a shadow approached to his left.

When he saw it was Detective Lance, he relaxed, if only slightly. Trust Lance to make any human encounter more complicated than it needed to be.

If he'd been planning to hide, it was quickly too late for that. Lance spotted him almost immediately, nodding before turning away, toward the darkened sky. "You're not going back out there, are you?" Lance huffed, sounding almost conversational. Small miracles did happen.

"Probably not."

Lance was quiet for a long time, but finally, he blew out a long, defeated-sounding breath. "I had it shut down," the older man confessed, his tone nearly breaking on the last word. "The machine, that is. And look at _this_. My own daughter nearly went up in smoke, along with all those others..."

His defeat mirrored Oliver's own. "I should've known Merlyn would cover all his bases." He spoke with regret.

"No, you shouldn't," Lance's tone hardened. "You're not the one whose career it is to stop things like this. You don't get paid to do this. _Trained_ to do this."

"You decided to be a cop. I decided to be a vigilante." Oliver hesitated. "Same goal, different methods."

Surprisingly, Lance didn't look at him in anger this time. Instead, he only raised an eyebrow toward the hooded figure, looking almost compassionate. Almost—fatherly, even. "Killing the bad guys, though—" he started, then shifted his weight, folding his arms across his chest. "Don't ask me how I know this, but—it's a dangerous path, the killing. The more you do it, the easier it gets. Pretty soon, you know far too well how the bad guys do what they do."

Oliver grimaced. What did a cop know about the kind of killing he had done? Lance had maybe had to kill, what, two or three gangbusters in his entire career? Brutal, yes, but nothing like what Oliver dealt with…

"One of these days, you're gonna start killing the wrong guys," Lance continued, seriously and Oliver realized it wasn't as much of a miracle as he'd thought. The detective was giving him yet another warning. "Nothing's changed between us, much as I respect what you did tonight. You've still got to know when the time comes to hang up that hood. Or I'm gonna hang it up for you."

…

In the end, Oliver did go back into the Glades one more time that night—as Oliver Queen, to find his insane hazard-friendly sister and her boyfriend. After getting Diggle into the hospital, he checked his phone to find thirty-six new voicemails from his mother.

The thought of Thea being in the Glades at the time of the attack was making Moira hysterical, and the thought of listening to the equally numerous voicemails from Laurel was doing the same to him, so he figured he'd better answer his mom's first.

"Um," Felicity started, as she watched him wrap his ankle in leftover bandages he'd snatched from _Diggle's_ nurse, "won't the limp give you away as, you know, being the same guy who just _limped_ out of the Glades earlier?"

"Nobody's paying attention to one guy, Felicity; it's kind of a huge public disaster and everyone's much more worried about themselves than the Hood."

"Give him a ride, will you, Lis?" Diggle raised his eyebrows at her.

"Giving the orders now, are we?" Oliver grumbled, but he appreciated the gesture as Felicity immediately grabbed his car keys and prepared to follow him out the door.


	2. Righting Wrongs

**A/N: Arrow has a** _ **pathological**_ **lack of medical accuracy. Just sayin' XD**

 **If you enjoyed this chapter, guess what you can do about it? Leave a yummy review in the hungry box below! (but only if you want to. Just sayin') :D**

 **Thanks y'all!**

 **Love, Marina**

…

Chapter 2

…

"Hang on, hang on—" Oliver leaned out the window, exchanging several well-placed expletives with a carful of lanky teenaged boys who had rammed them from the side in their hurry to get out of the Glades.

Felicity raised her eyebrows, but said nothing. Then she got excited and pointed straight ahead. "Oliver, I see them!"

He ducked back inside the car, squinting through the glare of streetlamps against the windshield. Sure enough, there were Thea and—that _kid_ —both of them side-by-side helping a little old man who looked like he could barely stand upright and a group of round faced, crying kids into a rickety old van.

Oliver had to admit he was shocked.

"Wow, I must've gotten the wrong people. There's no way that girl throwing homeless people in the back of a van is your sister," Felicity deadpanned.

As they watched, one of the older teens attempted to nick the girl's purse, slipping the strap from her shoulder and starting to run off. Thea grabbed the bag just in time and yanked with all her might, swinging the several-thousand-dollar bag in the kid's direction and slapping him with it several times before glaring and resuming picking up the smaller children with her purse still strapped firmly to her chest.

"It's her," Oliver unnecessarily supplied, throwing open the door and stepping out onto the wet pavement. "Hey!" he shouted in her direction.

Thea looked up in shock to see her brother standing there.

"What are you doing here?" he accused, using the hood of the car for support as he limped toward her.

"Trying to help, which is more than _you're_ doing!" she shouted back angrily.

"The Glades go up in smoke, _our_ mom claims responsibility, and your first thought is to run into this madness and _help_?"

Even as he spoke, a flood of gang members charged through the street beside them, firing off machine guns at random and smashing the glass casings on every store they passed. Bullets whistled over their heads.

"Get down!" Oliver shouted, heart stopping as he hit the ground, hoping she would do the same.

Thea gasped and followed his example, Roy also shoving the kid he had in his arms to the ground and jumping on top of both of him and Thea.

 _Crack, crack, crack!_ The bullets hit glass, probably a car windshield's.

Oliver swiveled his head around just enough to lock eyes with Felicity, still waiting in the car, who looked shaken peering up from behind the wheel but still unhurt. He scrambled to his feet as soon as the shooters passed and picked up Thea from the ground, refusing to take his hands from her shoulders even when she attempted to twist herself away.

"Now do you see why you can't be here?" he shouted in her face.

"If Roy and I don't help them, who else will?" she shouted back.

"Oh, so this was _Roy's_ idea?"

Thea's new 'boyfriend' glared at him, but his look didn't have any real heat behind it. He was from the Glades; he knew there was reason to be worried almost as much as Oliver did.

Thea yanked her arm from his grasp, giving him a withering look. "He tried to get me to leave. _Three times_. This is his home; this is where he lives. But I am not leaving until he does."

"There is a mob forming outside our house," Oliver pulled her close and hissed in her ear. "Mom called and left more messages than I had time to listen to. The police came to arrest her for taking part and ended up having to stay with her and barricade her in her own bedroom just to keep her safe from _them_. Sooner or later, someone's going to recognize _us_!"

Thea's lip quavered, some of her anger dissolving. "So we can't go home?"

Oliver sighed. "I'll find a safe place for us to stay."

"I'm staying with Roy."

"Then Roy's coming with us."

" _Roy_ is standing right here," the younger man interjected, crossing his arms over his chest as the van, now full, began speeding away. His voice softened. "You should go with him, Thea. Your brother's right—someone may recognize you."

"As if there aren't people in the Glades who have grudges against you, too," she replied sassily.

"What, so you're just going to stay here until everyone's evacuated except for you two?!" Oliver exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air.

"That's the plan, yeah," Thea folded her arms decisively.

Roy nodded. "The Vigilante can't do it all by himself, now, can he?"

Oliver resisted the urge to bang his head against something hard. "We have to leave! Please, Thea!" An image of Tommy lying in the wreckage not a few hours ago replayed in his head, and his heart froze at the thought of the same happening to his baby sister. Or anyone she loved, for that matter.

He went to grab her, and Thea shoved him back, a gleam in her eyes he wasn't sure he'd ever seen before. "Mom helped create this mess," she ground at him. "She helped _destroy_ the Glades. So if any part of you thinks that this is somehow not our responsibility, you can forget that right now. Mom would want us to be here."

Oliver shook his head as she turned and walked away, Roy following her without comment. "Okay," he finally called after her. "But I'm coming to help you."

Thea's grin almost made him forget he wasn't in the hood anymore.

It had been a long time since his sister had been proud of him.

…

It was eleven in the morning before Roy finally took them all aside, Felicity included since she too had come along and helped with the work, and found a halfway intact basement they could sleep in.

Scratched, bruised, and both emotionally and physically exhausted, the three younger people fell asleep on the concrete floor immediately and were dead to the world. Oliver wanted badly to follow suit, and his leg was painful and so swollen he couldn't put weight on it at all anymore. The others had helped him limp around for the past seven hours, since he insisted on staying where Thea was and refusing to let Felicity take him back to the hospital with Diggle.

Instead of resting now that he had the chance, however, he pulled out his phone to check his voicemails again.

Mom was fine—they'd finally gotten through the mob and she was being held under protective custody.

With a slight shiver, he pressed the first one from Laurel.

" _Oliver?" her tearful voice started, barely able to speak. "It's—it's Tommy—he was in the building when it fell, and—I don't know if he's gonna make it, Oliver, please call me!"_

Oliver felt his throat close up and he swallowed hard, pressing the next one.

" _They're taking him into surgery now but nobody's telling me anything. Oh my God, Ollie, where are you?!"_

Then the next one.

" _Oliver, I know your mother's probably in trouble and I can't imagine what you must be dealing with right now, but if Tommy dies and you're not here I am going to KILL you!"_

And then the next one.

" _He's alive!"_ Her voice choked up, and she ended the call.

It was that one that finally caused Oliver to break. Streaks of tears ran down his face and he bent over the small device, shoulders shaking with sobs.

" _He's alive."_

…

Oliver woke up before the others, the need to know what else Laurel had to say and his leg throbbing like it was about to fall off (if only it would) forcing him into a much lighter sleep than otherwise. He pressed his voicemail button again, knowing he needed to call the police station where Moira was being kept and also Lance to report what had happened with Malcolm, but this time, he went first to the remaining messages from Laurel.

" _Ollie, I don't know if you'll get this but if you do, please come to the hospital as soon as you can. Tommy's through his first surgery but they still don't think he has a chance of surviving—he's in a coma, he has at least three more surgeries left, his oxygen levels are barely sustainable—it's a complete disaster and I don't know what to do. I just—" she stopped. "I just really need someone here, Ollie. You have to be here. Tommy is dying, Oliver, did you hear me? Your best friend! Is dying! Get your rich-boy ass down here NOW!"_ Her breath hitched piteously before she hung up, and Oliver felt the phone slip from his hand and fall in his lap with a dull thump.

"Guys, wake up," he shook first Thea, because Lord knew she'd take longer to wake up than the other two, then Felicity and Roy.

Blinking sleepily, all three of them started to wake, slowly sitting up from where they'd sprawled on the hard ground for the night.

Thea rubbed her eyes blearily and screamed when a spider fell out of her hair. Roy rolled his eyes and brushed it aside, and she stomped on it several times as punishment for disrupting her beauty sleep.

Felicity looked up at Oliver questioningly, wondering why he'd woken them so soon. The sun hadn't quite set, so they had only slept for about five hours or so.

Oliver's voice shook a little when he addressed them all. "We have to go. It's—Tommy's been hurt. He's dying."

Thea gasped, eyes brimming with tears, and Felicity's mouth fell open a little. Roy just looked confused.

"Tommy Merlyn," Oliver clarified, looking right at the boy as if daring him to challenge their concern.

Roy, however, only looked at the ground. "Guy was gonna hire me," he muttered under his breath. "He wasn't in with his dad, was he?"

"Absolutely not," Oliver assured him.

Roy still looked uncertain, but Oliver noticed him looking at Thea and seeing how exhausted she still looked, and the fact that she kept nervously picking at her hair and nails as though expecting more debris to fall from the ceiling any second. To Oliver's embarrassment, he also cast a long glance at his leg, which was visibly swollen even through his pantleg.

They couldn't go back out and continue helping today. They needed a break—all of them did.

"I'll go pull around a car," he nodded to the three of them, picking himself off the floor and heading through the open window. "If I can find one."

Sighing, Oliver let his head sink back against the concrete wall beside him.

"—ere gonna let me look at this?"

He blinked, twice, before Felicity's concerned face, with her makeup totally smudged which was a weird look for her, swam into view. "What?" he rasped.

Her frown deepened. "Oliver, are you sure nothing's wrong with you other than your twisted ankle? –And knee? –And, possibly hip?"

"Sheesh, Ollie!" Thea got to her knees beside him. "What were you doing before you came and got us?"

Oliver raised his eyebrows at their concern. "What, do I look different than I did last night?"

"You mean this morning? Er, afternoon? I mean, it was kind of late in the morning, so it was almost after—nevermind." Felicity stopped. "And no, I'm just checking because you're extremely—jeopardy-friendly sometimes. On occasion. Well, really it was just that one time, but still, it _totally_ freaked me out—"

"Are you _sure_ you two are just friends?" Thea rubbed her chin very pointedly.

" _Yes,"_ Oliver and Felicity both declared at once. Thea put her hands up in surrender, just as a loud _beeeeep!_ came from outside.

"Here—" Felicity hooked her arm around Oliver's waist, and between her and Thea, they got him to his feet. He screwed up his face in pain for a moment as all the blood went rushing down into the injured joints, but the worst of it passed in a moment.

They made it outside to where the car was waiting, engine still running and everything. Thea stopped them all in their tracks. "He did NOT just leave without us?!" she fumed loudly, before Oliver and Felicity shushed her.

Sure enough, Roy was nowhere in sight.

"I'm going to find him!" Thea began, but there was still a halfheartedness in her tone.

Oliver reached over and squeezed her shoulder. After all, he DID kind of need her right now as much as she needed him. "You can find him later, Thea. Tommy needs us."

Reluctantly, she nodded and helped to carry him to the backseat.

…

"I'm sick of visiting people in the hospital." Thea's voice sounded choked, as she rode along in the passenger seat while Felicity drove. Oliver tried to remain as still as possible in the back, his leg propped up on the seat.

"Well, I'm sick of listening to you gripe, so can we please just have a ten-minute car ride with some semblance of quiet?" he snapped in reply.

Thea opened her mouth to retort, then thought the better of whatever she was planning to say and settled back with a disgruntled huff.

A corner of Felicity's mouth went up. "And here I was almost beginning to forget you two were brother and sister."

There was silence for a short while, but Thea didn't last long before breaking it again. "Can I call Mom?" She sounded just as upset as last time.

Oliver sighed, deciding she was probably seeking comfort even though he was dead tired and would really rather not give it to her. "You can call the police station," he replied, handing over her phone, which she'd had him hold onto for safekeeping after her purse nearly got stolen a second time. "They might let you talk to her. At the very least, they'll let you leave a message that we're okay."

"Not like she deserves to know," Thea huffed again, but she sniffled and raised the phone to her ear anyway.

Oliver just leaned back and rolled his eyes. She was still such a _kid_ and she didn't know it.

…

Laurel gazed at the three of them dully when they came in, not even reacting to the fact that Oliver was using both of the ladies for support. After sitting down, he reached over and gave her an awkward side-hug, and she accepted it.

"Is he—" Oliver wasn't even sure if he wanted to know.

"They still haven't let me see him," she replied in a flat tone.

Felicity squeezed her shoulder as she sat beside the young lawyer. "No news is good news, right?"

Laurel gave a kind of clearing-her-throat laugh, and shook her head. "Doesn't make it any easier to sit here."

"Where's your dad?" Thea asked, plopping down beside Oliver.

"Getting us more coffee," she replied. "I don't think either of us have slept all night."

"You should," Oliver coaxed her softly. "It's almost night again."

"You can talk," she indicated his swollen leg. "What have you been doing all this time?"

"We've been working in the Glades," Thea spoke up, her voice a little shaky. "Trying to help a few people out."

Laurel's eyes slid shut. "I haven't even let myself think about all those people," she began, hesitantly. "I can't—"

"Hey, hey, sh, it's okay," Oliver took her in his arms as she began to sob, shoulders shaking uncontrollably as she leaned into his shoulder. "You should go out to the car and sleep. One of us can come and get you if we hear anything."

Laurel wiped her eyes with her fingers and nodded in agreement, but still, she hesitated. "He doesn't have anybody else," she reminded them, even as her eyes overflowed a second time. "Tommy—he doesn't—have a dad worth speaking of, he's lost his mom, he doesn't have any other family in Starling City. Just us. We're all he has!"

Oliver nodded, finding it difficult to speak. "I know," he whispered.

Felicity took Laurel's arm and led her sympathetically toward the elevator, fishing her keys out of her pocket.

Oliver, however, was finding it increasingly difficult to focus. His head dipped, jerked back upward, and his vision swam.

"—llie? Oliver!" Thea's frantic voice began calling him from behind. Her head came into view, but it was fuzzy around the edges, and he had to blink several times to realize she was there.

"'M alright," he attempted to reassure her, but his tongue wouldn't work properly and the words came out slurred.

"No, you're not," she snapped, grabbing his shoulders and shaking him a little to bring him back to himself. "What is it? Is it your leg?"

Oliver shrugged, dumbly.

"We need a doctor to look at you," she decided, placing her hands on her hips.

He started to shake his head, but Thea was already looking around and had grabbed a nearby nurse before he could form the words to protest.

"Can we see about getting my brother admitted? He's done something to his leg and I keep thinking he's going to pass out. Something's really wrong with him."

The nurse sighed, looking overwhelmed and annoyed at being interrupted, but she pointed in the direction of the floor desk. "Talk to them," she instructed. "They'll give you the paperwork and we'll see if we can find him a room."

Thea smiled sweetly at her, strutting right past her fuming older brother to the desk and repeating her request.


	3. Waking Up

**A/N: Thank you to everyone who has followed/favorited!**

 **Enjoy this chapter!**

…

Chapter 3

…

That was how Thea wound up being the first person to hear Tommy's status post-surgery.

The doctor who gave her the report looked tired, she thought. Countless people were being brought in from the Glades, so she wasn't surprised.

"Your friend was impaled through the top portion of the liver," he explained to her, not taking his eyes from his clipboard. "Most of the blood loss came from further back at the major vein coming from the heart, so that's why surgery took so long. It was almost impossible to get him stable and control the bleeding, but we finally made it. The object struck at his spine and also tore his diaphragm. The effects of those two have yet to show up, so we'll be watching him for quite a while."

He offered a hand and Thea shook it, feeling a sudden sense that she was the responsible adult now, and not sure how much she liked it. Tommy and the others were counting on her, and she'd all but forgotten half of what the doctor had just said.

She drew in a deep breath. "Thank you," she managed.

"You can see him now, if you want to," he offered, gesturing toward a nearby hallway.

Her eyes flew wide. Now she really didn't want to be the one who was out here, all alone. "He's down there?"

"Room 318. Do you have anyone else here with you, kid?"

"Y—yeah," she nodded, snapping her attention back to his face and standing a little straighter, despite how sore her neck and back were from all the work yesterday. "I'll go get them. But I want to see him first."

"That way," he pointed, to lead her in the right direction.

"Mmhhmm." Thea walked hesitantly, trying to quell the butterflies in her stomach. "Thank you."

She paused again outside the door to Tommy's room, then shook herself. This was ridiculous. Things couldn't be too bad—she'd known Tommy all her life!

She pushed the door handle down and slipped inside.

It was hard to believe that was Tommy. The setup around him looked like something she'd only seen in movies—he was so surrounded by tubes and blinking lights and bags of fluid hardly an inch of skin was showing, and a breathing mask was attached to his face so she couldn't even see that.

Slowly, she inched her way forward, swallowing as she took in the fact that this was, in fact, her friend. Her second big brother, who always tended to show up right when she needed him. Who had been there even when Oliver had disappeared.

"Tommy?" she sidled up next to the bed and took his hand in hers, curling her lip in disapproval at how cold it was. She rubbed both of her hands over it, trying to warm him up a little, but she didn't dare touch him more than that. She was afraid she'd screw something up.

There was a blanket sitting on the shelf behind them—she decided to grab it and drape it over him gently, tucking it in around his feet.

Sighing, she pulled the disgusting plastic chair over from the window to sit beside him, and pulled out her phone.

"Thea?" Laurel's voice, sleepy but tear-filled nonetheless, filled her ear.

A sickening feeling filled Thea's gut as she realized she hadn't even understood what the doctor had said enough to tell Laurel if Tommy was actually going to be okay or not.

"Laurel, they let me see him. Come on up—umm, yeah. Room 318." She quickly hung up before Laurel could ask her any questions. She was the lawyer—she could grill the medical professionals for the answers she wanted herself.

Thea was just the baby sister. And she was too scared right now to so much as leave Tommy's side.

…

Once Laurel was settled in watching over Tommy, Thea escaped into Oliver's room just in time to see an epic argument taking place between her stubborn-headed older brother and an equally stubborn nurse.

"My friend is _dying_. I can walk. I'm _fine,_ " Oliver kept insisting, while the nurse glared him down.

"The doctor hasn't even seen you yet, Mister, and he's been running around this floor for God knows how long seein' as we're majorly overbooked. And if you think you can just go running around this hospital with no regards for his schedule just because you're rich enough to have a private room in a crisis—?"

Thea cleared her throat, announcing her presence to the two of them. "Ollie, Laurel's with him. It's okay. Can I sit with you?"

Oliver flopped back in his bed, fixing her with a piteous expression. "Thea, I have _got_ to see him."

"You _will_ ," Thea grabbed his hand comfortingly, and the nurse gave a small huff of relief. "But in the meantime, we're going to be patient and sit here and wait for the nice doctor, aren't we?"

"Very funny," he grumbled, before he was assailed by a fit of coughing.

Thea crossed her arms over her chest as she waited for him to get his breath back. Yes, something was definitely wrong with her brother. She was just going to have to play the big sister this time.

"Sorry that took so long," the elderly doctor rushed into the room, still drying his hands on a towel. He had a lisp and a greying beard, and Thea instinctively winced, but Oliver didn't seem put off. "He's passing out, you said?" he aimed his abrupt question toward Thea, who sat up a little straighter when she found she was the one being addressed.

"I didn't pass out." Oliver felt the need to clarify.

"Yep," Thea responded coolly. "Almost did, anyway. Several times."

"You're dehydrated," he snapped his fingers in Oliver's direction. "I can tell just by looking at you." At Oliver's look of annoyance, the doctor reached over and pinched the skin just above his wrist with a gloved hand. Instead of bouncing back, it stayed indented with the marks from his fingerprints. "There's your proof," he pointed. "You are, too," he then nodded in Thea's direction, whose impressed look immediately turned to one of equal indignance. "But he's worse. That's why he's such a mess. You two've been out in the Glades?"

They both nodded dumbly.

"How long?"

"S—since last night," Thea started. "Well, since the quakes started."

"I figured. Everyone coming in here from the Glades has been dehydrated. Everyone's in crisis mode. Where's my nurse?" he began looking around, then disappeared out the door for a few seconds and came back in followed by Oliver's now disgruntled-looking nurse. "Get an IV started in him. And get her a water jug," he nodded in Thea's direction.

Embarrassed, Thea pretended not to hear them.

"Then, you both order from the cafeteria. Understood?"

Thea began to protest (cafeteria food was _awful_ ), but Oliver interrupted. "Understood," he replied quietly.

"Now, let's take a look at your leg. Let me guess; you just couldn't stay off it after you injured it, could you?"

Oliver cringed as the doctor began lightly palpating the swollen areas, at the exact same time as the nurse deftly inserted an IV in his arm. Thea tried hard not to grin.

"We're going to pack you in ice and do an MRI before anything else," the doctor finally assessed. "Anything else?"

Thea began to shake her head, but Oliver spoke up unexpectedly. "Yeah," he confessed. "I'm not sure if they're just bruised or not, but I think one or two of my ribs might be cracked."

Thea furrowed her eyebrows. Where and when had Oliver managed to crack his ribs?!

Dr. Nguyen pulled his hospital gown from the side and checked where Oliver was indicating, and nodded. "Full-body MRI, then. Any trouble breathing?"

Oliver shook his head. "No, Sir."

"Okay, then."

Almost immediately, Dr. Nguyen was gone, leaving only the nurse who plunked a plastic jug of water with a straw sticking out of the top in Thea's lap.

She took a long sip, then grimaced. "This tastes disgusting," she stuck her tongue out. Then she looked worried, turning to Oliver. "What if Roy gets dehydrated, too?"

"Roy can take care of himself, Thea," Oliver rolled his eyes.

She sipped a little more from the jug, thoughtfully. "As his girlfriend, it's my job to be not entirely convinced of that."

…

Once Oliver's MRI was taken care of and he was transferred back to his room (with strict orders to stay OFF of his leg until the swelling went down and they could cast his _broken_ foot), he immediately snuck over to ICU where Tommy was.

Thea glared at him when he came hobbling in, finding Detective Lance and Laurel also seated around the bed and numerous machines.

Laurel looked up at him with a firmer resolve in her eyes than he'd seen before. It was similar to the look she wore before a case, but much less forgiving. "All the doctors I talked to say he's not going to make it," she explained in an icy tone. "I'm going to find him a new one with more optimism."

Oliver's heart took a plummet lower than he knew it was capable of. "Thea, can you get me a chair?" he asked quietly.

His sister glared at him again, but a little less heatedly as she pulled one over close to her own and took his arm, helping him limp over and sit down.

Detective Lance, of all people, was watching him sharply. Oliver looked away, feigning total innocence. That was the last thing he needed—for Laurel's father to connect the dots—again. He guessed he wouldn't get off the hook so— _easily_ —the second time.

"Was he in the Glades?" he asked softly, feeling grim as he looked over his friend's nearly unrecognizable form, covered in tubes and wires as he was.

Laurel nodded brokenly. "For me," she whispered, her voice choked.

"What happened to him? I have a friend who can look up the best doctors and experts on his condition."

Laurel wasn't able to reply, but Thea handed him the clipboard at the end of Tommy's bed, looking it over with him. "Something about his spine, a lot of blood, and a diph—no, dia—" she frowned in concentration.

"Diaphragm?" Oliver interrupted, raising his eyebrows.

"Yeah, that."

"He did this to save me," Laurel interrupted, unaware of their banter. All the others turned to look at her as she lovingly cupped Tommy's hand to her cheek. "All that time I waited around, and even after we had broken up he still came back to save me."

Detective Lance put his arm around her sympathetically. "It's not your fault, baby girl."

"Don't worry, Laurel," Oliver added in a quiet voice. "He'll make it. He's strong."

She heaved a shaky breath and nodded. "I know."

…

Tommy thought it was weird that his eyes were swimming, but none of the rest of him was. He could tell he was lying down, probably on something hard and uncomfortable, but all his eyes kept seeing was watery blue.

That, and his chest hurt like it was aching for air, and although he was vaguely aware of something filling his lungs and pushing its way back out, it was forceful rather than easy, like breathing through a diving mask when you got that weird deep-water panic syndrome thing that he'd gotten one time when he and Oliver had gone scuba diving in Tahiti.

He was never doing that again. In fact, it was probably best to avoid Tahiti altogether. There were plenty of other nice beaches in the world. Jamaica, the Bahamas, the Greek Islands, Puerto Rico…

He should take Laurel to Puerto Rico sometime—she loved the beach and seeing her in a bikini would be _fantastic_ —but maybe she wouldn't want to go—Laurel wasn't his girlfriend anymore. Wait, was she?

He furrowed his brows, struggling to remember, and though for a second he heard her voice.

" _Tommy?"_

"Laurel!" he tried to shout, calling for help since he was underwater—he couldn't find his way back out. "Laurel! Where are you?" Try as he might, though, he couldn't feel his own voice—his throat had something jammed in it halfway between it and his mouth, and he couldn't feel his lips move to form the words even as he shouted them in his head.

Then like an electric shock, something warm and real and definitely NOT part of the dreamland he was trapped in grabbed his hand.

His actual hand, which he was suddenly aware of feeling in—feeling of Laurel's fingertips, her nails, his palms brushing against hers—that was real. He held on as tightly as he could, hoping she could pull him out of wherever he was stuck in.

"Tommy? Come on, Tommy—he's waking up! Ollie, wake up—help me help him!"

Tommy groaned loudly and now, he knew he had actually made the sound. He forced his eyes open and the water was replaced by the cold hues of early natural light coming in through closed window blinds, the white of a stark ceiling, two faces with no names looking at him from above—

The real world started spinning as soon as it appeared and he gasped for air, trying to stay awake.

"Tommy, Babe, can you hear me?"

He struggled to think. Was that Laurel's voice?

"Tommy! Tommy, it's all right. You got really hurt—you're in the hospital. We're right here, me and Laurel."

Wait, that was Oliver!

He grabbed Laurel's hand even tighter, unsure if it was her or him that was doing most of the work, since his muscles felt weak—almost too weak to even hold onto her.

A hand brushed against his forehead, stroking his hair gently. "We're all so relieved," Laurel murmured, her face now more visible now that his head had cleared a little. Her brown eyes were—oh, so beautiful. "We're all right here for you, Tommy. Does anything hurt?"

Hurt? Oh—

That weight on his chest had grown heavier, so heavy he thought his ribs would break—no, they must already be broken—he was _crushed_ , felt so sick—every part of him ached and as he looked at Laurel, he realized he was going to have to close his eyes unless he wanted to throw up.

That freaked them both out, apparently.

"Tommy—"

"Tommy! Wake up!"

Suddenly he was so angry he wanted to get up and punch one or both of them. Didn't they get that he wasn't asleep? Morons…didn't they know how much he freaking _hurt_ right now…

Giving in, he let his eyes snap back open again and both of them sighed with relief.

Half of him—the outer half, that is—was frozen and hurt from the cold. The main part of his body, however, was so hot—he felt like he was burning—every breath hurt like it was burning him alive—he tried to scream, but all that came out was a strangled whimper.

Laurel and Oliver's voices swirled around him like a cloud he couldn't break out of; wasn't sure he wanted to. It was much more pleasant to have no idea what was going on—

"I thought they were going to take out the breathing tube before he woke up," he vaguely heard Laurel say.

"Maybe they didn't think he was going to," Oliver replied. Was that disgust in his voice?

"Well," Laurel didn't sound to happy or surprised by that idea, "I always knew otherwise. Even though it's been nearly a week."

"Tommy," Oliver addressed him, taking his other hand on the right side of his bed while Laurel held his left one, "you have no idea how good it is to have you back. I'm so sorry for everything." He hesitated for a second. "I don't deserve to have you as my friend."

Sorry? What was Ollie sorry for? His pain? Tommy wasn't sure that was it—he vaguely remembered hating Oliver, but what for? And he also felt that HE had something to say 'sorry' for—something REALLY important. What was it?

Giving up on finding all the answers right away, he let his eyes drift shut and slipped back into the water before his friends could stop him.


End file.
